Friday, November 19, 2010

Today I went to go see the movie, “Waiting for Superman.” I picked up my buddy, who wanted to go, and headed to the cinemopolis in Ithaca for a bro-date. When we got there, we got our tickets and headed to the theatre. When I sat down I saw a friend of mine from class who was seeing the movie for some extra hours for PED 447, just like myself. It was good to have him there because we both could relate to what was going on in the movie. My buddy that I brought wasn’t so into the movie, he’s a public relations guy. The entire trip for the night was a few minutes shy of 4 hours.

Watching this movie really opened my eyes about American Education and what is going on in our country today. I was alarmed by some of the statistics that were being shown of how bad America is doing in Education. We ranked almost at the bottom of every poll except confidence, which was the only one we were at the top in. Go figure. The movie showed how public schools are failing our students and teachers aren’t working at their best potential. Failure rates are high and some schools are becoming known as “drop-out factories”, because that’s all that’s happening. The movie focused in on a few different students and their journey through public and private schools and then their move to charter schools. These schools are made, but have limited placement in their facility. Some get in and some don’t, but it is an overall an exciting experience to see that people care so much about their education and want what’s best for their children.

Other things like tenure and the dance of lemons were also talked about and have also been taught in PED 470. It was nice to see things we were taught being talked about, in real context in the movie, relating to real life. I feel like this movie should be watched my all teacher candidates before they head out into the schools. It reminds us to always strive for being a great teacher because our children rely so heavily on it. This was a great experience that got me thinking a lot about our education in America. As a future teacher, I couldn’t help but feel motivated even more now, to want to be that “change agent.”

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About Me

My name is Frank Padolecchia and I am a 20 year old Physical Education major at SUNY Cortland. I play varsity lacrosse at Cortland and on my free time I like to go snowboarding and surfing. My goal is to make others enjoy Physical Education just as much as I do.